The present invention relates to an apparatus for scattering fibrous material, e.g., chips or the like to form a precisely controlled blanket of chips, together with a binder, onto a scattering band conveyor or a mold. The apparatus of this type comprises a scattering chamber including a dosing conveyor for transferring the material to be scattered toward the discharge end of the scattering chamber.
In the fabrication of, for instance, chipboard products the blank is formed with the help of material scattering, in which process a mix of chips and binder is fed, e.g., onto a conveyor belt or into a mold in order to form a blank. The blank is next pressed into a board in a continuously operating press, or alternatively, cut and transferred to a plate press in which the blanket of chips and binder is pressed into a chipboard. The present problem in the chipboard fabrication is how to attain such an optimal scattering of the mix of the chips and binder that forms an even blanket on the conveyor belt. Furthermore, the scattering should take place so that the ready-pressed chipboard has the coarser fraction of the chips in the middle of the board, while the finer fraction settles on both outer surfaces of the board. To attain these goals, different methods are applied today. E.g., blowing is commonly used to fractionate the mix of chips and binder. Blowing, however, easily leads to uncontrolled turbulence and unsatisfactory final result. Furthermore, blowing consumes a lot of energy.